Lingyang Companion Story 1 | Wild Heart's Return (Wuthering Waves)

Lingyang Companion Story 1 | Wild Heart's Return (Wuthering Waves)

In Jinzhou, you meet an unusual... human?

I'll be completely honest here, I forgot Lingyang had a companion quest. I only remembered him when I was doing the the festival's playable characters' side quests. I legit had a Steve Harvey moment when I saw that his quest was locked, because I haven't done his companion quest.

I was in Discord with a friend of mine, when I mentioned this to him, he just started wheezing. He told me that Lingyang's quest was pretty bad, which I didn't really pay any heed. But apparently, he said a lot of people hated this in the sub-reddit, which I haven't visited since the game launched, so I did not know really.

But I must admit that I did kind of forgot he was a playable character. I think it's because prior to this, he Rover didn't really get to meet him in the previous main quests. He did made an appearance in the Jinzhou's defense in Act 6, but that was it. Yinlin was also the same, as we never really met her until her companion quest, which was quite weird. As I thought she was one of the premium characters they wanted to market the most, alongside with Jiyan, and it was back when it first launched after all. I was honestly bummed about her not having any part in the main quest. There's also Calcharo, but he's with the New Federation, so he might make his debut later.

Anyway, after finishing Lingyang's quest. It's not as bad as I people made it out to be. The dungeon level was actually pretty immersive, with portions of it having a side scrolling sequence part, it was probably the best bit for me. But...the last segment of the dungeon was definitely a curve ball...and made me cringe a bit. Up until that point, I thought they were just going to do a short segment where Lingyang's past as a beast would be revealed as something that was left in the past. But...yeah...I did not expect the whole dangerous beast act followed by the "Sorry, I let you see this side of me" part. Suffice to say, I was gobsmacked and may have laughed just a bit, like it came out of nowhere.

The whole thing sounds decent enough in paper, but I think Lingyang's design was the miss, and how they went on about it. His backstory is good, but his design was lacking in order to pull the story they made for him. I understand that Kuro probably wanted a variety for male playable characters, with them trying not to make every character the tall handsome male model, but they could have taken their time with him. It felt like Lingyang's character was on a time crunch, or he was the last addition to the cast that was rushed. A shame too, as he's the only male character with the ice attribute.

I don't get the hate Lingyang though. The infamous segment in this quest was anything but funny for me, but I did not hate it, just confused really.

The problem I had with this quest was the long black screen transition after certain dialogue sequences. Also, the last part where I had to follow Lingyang backstage, he was just missing, and I couldn't find him, because the navigation wouldn't show at the map. Thank goodness he was nearby, so I triggered the next part. Not to mention, this quest had the version 1.0 bug with dialogue being cut off abruptly.

I just wish his attacks had a more visible elemental infusions with the color and all. I can barely see his when he performs his skill and liberation. I thought he had no ice attribute the first time.